The Duggars Are Returning to Television… Sort Of

It was last July when all the scandals with the Duggar family finally hit the fan and TLC officially canceled their reality show19 Kids and Counting. It was surprising, really, that it hadn’t happened earlier, immediately after it was revealed that Josh Duggar had been accused of molesting five girls (including four of his sisters) when he was younger — while some of them were sleeping, no less.

TLC stopped airing episodes of the show in May, when the story became national news, but there was question of whether the Duggars had appeared on TV for the last time.

As we soon learned, TLC wasn’t going to let this cash cow run dry anytime soon.

They aired a special in August called Breaking the Silence that focused on two of Josh Duggar’s victims, Jessa Duggar Seewald and Jill Duggar Dillard. You could make the argument, though, that this was okay since it was all about what the girls went through; the show wasn’t promoting their family.

That soon morphed into a three-part series called Jill & Jessa: Counting On. Again, the focus was on the victims and their lives. Not the full Duggar family.

Since then, we’ve also heard reports of a camera crew following sisters Jana and Jinger Duggar, for reasons that were unclear.

Now we know what’s happening.

TLC has announced that Jill & Jessa: Counting On will become a full-fledged series, bringing the non-scandalous segment of the family back to television. Us Weeklyhas the story:

The episodes will show Jessa and husband Ben Seewald bonding with son Spurgeon, 3 months, while Jill and husband Derick Dillard balance caring for son Israel, 10 months, with working as missionaries in Central America.

Also set to appear on the show are Jill and Jessa’s siblings Jana, Jinger, Joy Anna, John David, Josiah and Joseph Duggar, along with sister-in-law Anna.

So 19 Kids and Counting, the show that focused on the entire Duggar clan (including Josh), isn’t coming back, but we’ve hardly seen the last of the family.